She thought their steamy Skype session was for his eyes only. But her college boyfriend sitting on the other side of the camera had hit the record button on his PC.

After their years-long romance fizzled, he sought revenge, posting their Internet romp on porn websites.

On Valentine's Day, a Harris County jury awarded the woman $500,000 for emotional distress, agreeing with her attorney that she had suffered for her ex-boyfriend's handiwork. It was the first time a case like this had been heard here and may be the largest "revenge porn" verdict ever, according to one legal expert.

A number of similar civil cases are winding their way through courthouses all over the country, and a revenge porn case in California ended earlier this month with a $250,000 jury award.

Lawyers who have filed revenge porn suits said they are forced to go the civil route because just three states have made revenge porn illegal. Nineteen other states are working toward legislation to make online harassment criminal, said Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami.

Texas is not one of those states.

"Our push for criminalization has been to recognize that the harm is so severe, so immediate and in sometimes so impossible to undo, that it warrants criminal penalties," Franks said.

Suing for civil damages is usually the only option for revenge porn victims. Franks said the $500,000 verdict awarded in Harris County is the largest civil award she had heard of.

"Civil remedies sometimes help some victims, but the question is whether that's enough, and I think the answer is no," she said. "What most of these victims want most is for these photos to never have been released."

Loss of privacy

The case serves as a cautionary tale for people on both sides of the camera's lens.

"Picture a complete loss of privacy," said the woman's attorney, Joseph Mathew. "It's just stripped away, and you're at the mercy of a thousand hungry strangers online. It's a nightmare."

Revenge porn can take several forms but generally refers to someone posting explicit images of former lovers online without their permission. Often, the person posting the images will include the victim's name, address and even their place of work.

"I think all of these revenge porn cases are about humiliation," said Mathew, who had a judge seal the case to protect the privacy of his client. "And I don't want him to be able to keep humiliating her."

While the Houston attorney trumpeted the verdict as a win for decency, the other side had a different perspective.

"They wanted money," said Tej Paranjpe, the attorney for the 27-year-old man who posted the explicit Skype footage of his ex-girlfriend.

Rejected settlements

Paranjpe, who plans to appeal the verdict, said the woman opted to pursue a jury trial after rejecting numerous settlement offers from his client to remove the video. The recent University of Houston graduate may never be able to pay the settlement, he added.

"These types of claims are generally reserved for people who are bed-ridden because of so much grief and humiliation," Paranjpe said. "What happened didn't actually affect her life because it's so commonplace among young people these days. They're used to it."

The woman at the center of the case sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which is generally a hard case to win because damages are so hard to prove.

University of Santa Clara law professor Eric Goldman, who writes about Internet issues including revenge porn, said emotional distress has been tacked on to so many lawsuits that it is almost a meaningless claim. But Goldman thinks revenge porn is an exception.

"When someone tries to hurt another person by publishing nude recordings, that seems like what a tort like intentional infliction of emotional distress was built for," he said. "Seeing a ruling like this ($500,000 verdict) suggests that maybe the system is working pretty well at fixing a problem."

Franks dismissed claims by some groups, like American Civil Liberties Union, that criminal penalties for posting the photos infringes on behavior protected by the First Amendment.

"This isn't protected speech, at least under any theory I can think of," she said.

Other lawyers disagree, including Houston attorney Mark Bennett, who said the proposed laws, including the ones written by Franks, are unconstitutional.

"The proposed statutes criminalizing it are very much flawed," Bennett said. He argued that the main argument against criminalizing revenge porn is that it is currently protected speech.

"We don't want to rush off and unprotect a certain category of speech because that always has unforeseen collateral consequences," Bennett said. "Once you open that particular door, you don't know what you're letting in."

He noted that Texas has a law against improper photography, which revenge porn could be prosecuted under.

"Let's try the laws that are already there, let them play out and find out if they're unconstitutional," he suggested.

Businesses targeted

Bennett and others contend the civil court may be the best option for now to punish wrongdoers.

"I think the young men who do this deserve to get their butts spanked in court," said John Morgan, a Beaumont attorney who filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of more than a dozen women last year. The suit claims invasion of privacy and mental anguish from an alleged revenge porn website, its host, GoDaddy.com, and all subscribing members.

While Morgan's suit is targeting businesses that profit from revenge porn, he also criticized the individuals who share explicit images and cautioned those who allow them to be taken.

"We're not raising our young men right if they believe they should do this to their wives or girlfriends," Morgan said. "Also the people who engage in 'sexting' or any of these types of activities have got to understand the risks."